A couple weekends ago we decided to take a spur of the moment trip down to San Francisco. We decided on Friday afternoon to go and took off early Saturday morning. We went with our good friends Mark and Casey and scored a sweet hotel right in the Union Square district. Our hotel window looked right out onto one of the busiest tourist streets in the whole town. We had cable cars, taxis, and all kinds of craziness going on 8 stories below us. It was a funny experience. It took all of my restraint to not drop a water balloon or something down on someone. While in the city, we crammed all kinds of fun stuff. For some reason the pictures never seem to do the trip justice, but here they are anyway...
Justine and I have taken tons of trips down to the city and we'd always seen this bar, high atop the city skyline in the Drake Hotel...Harry Denton's Starlight Room...We finally made it there on this trip and enjoyed a cocktail, some dancing, and the view. The skyline of the City is pretty amazing.
An activity as simple as walking through the streets at night can be quite exciting. There are all kinds of sights and sounds. San Fran is chock full of weirdos and free-spirited people. We spent Saturday night bar hopping and looking for some good salsa music to dance to.
After a night of rubbing elbows with more Californians than you can shake a stick at we were ready for some breathing room and a cheap beer. Our hotel room had an awesome view out the windows, but the window over the bathtub was especially great and well suited for swilling beers and people watching. The cheap beer wasn't actually that cheap though, a six-pack of Redstripe ran around $18. You can drop $100 in a few hours in the city.
Alcatraz Island...It doesn't really look like any place I would want to be stuck. After a good breakfast Sunday morning at the best breakfast spot in the city, we walked around Fisherman's Wharf and took in some views of the bay.
Mark and Casey both skateboard, so it's only natural that we'd take our boards with us. After a night crammed in with a bunch of people we decided to visit Golden Gate Park and go for a skate on the paths. Golden Gate Park is San Fran's equivalent to Central Park, but a bit bigger. Within the park is an area called the 'Japanese Tea Garden', we'd always wanted to check it out. It's well worth the time.
The nice Japanese guy that ran the place warned us not to skate...but they needed a picture. Notice Mark in the background pondering the beauty of the place. The whole 'Tea Garden' is set up really nice and is landscaped beautifully.
There were several of these pagodas in the garden. Apparently a monk would live in one and ponder existence until he figured things out. They are all exact replicas of one in Japan. The park was originally built in 1894 for a California Exposition, many of the pagodas from that time still survive.
More pagodas, looks like Justine is taking time to read the sign and admire the little coy pond that ran along the paths.
Most of the garden was landscaped in this manner. It was pretty spectacular. The pictures don't really do it justice. It'd be awesome to see that park in the spring when everything is blooming and green.
This bridge is sweet. It's been around since the 1890's, it was built in Japan and the brought over to San Fran as a gift.
After the Tea Garden and some more skating around, we headed for our last stop...the Haight and Asbury district. The district is kind of the spark for the whole counter-culture movement of the 50's and 60's. The Grateful Dead called this place home, as well as a host of literary giants. People like Allan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, and Neal Cassidy lived and wrote here...Writers, I would argue, mainly responsible for the whole change in our culture during the 60's. It still has that flavor, but the genius has been mainly replaced by wanna-be hippies and bums. For me, it's kind of disheartening. All of those writers were into the whole drugs and alcohol scene, but they didn't let it take hold of them. They used that energy to create a whole new literary genre and movement. The people who are there now are into that same drug and booze thing, but they are little more than bums parroting 40 year old ideas and begging change off people. I just want to slap a few of those hippies with copies of 'On the Road' or 'Sometimes a Great Notion' and tell them to get off their asses and go have an adventure.
After Haight-Ashbury, we were ready to head back to our peaceful home in the redwoods. A trip into the City isn't complete until you stop for the best fast food ever though, In and Out Burger. It's honestly the best burger I've ever had anywhere. I'm seriously going to miss In and Out Burger (it's a West Coast only franchise). We stopped at one outside the City and provisioned for the 4-5 trip through no man's land. I had to get 4 burgers to make the trip.
It really was a great trip. The pictures don't do it justice at all. After a while, you just forget to take pictures and just enjoy the ride. It was great to take a trip with another couple. Justine and Casey could do all the shopping they wanted. Mark and I would just pop into a nearby pub and grab a frosty brew and bullshit about life until they were ready to mosey on down the street to the next shoe store.
Stay tuned for more adventures and ramblings. We have some good trips in the works for our last couple months in Humboldt and then it's across the country and onto the next adventure. God Bless.
